Tag: invented data

Data as Menetekel 7: More than a quarter of the tweets on the migration pact Social Bots?

On 10.12.2018 the WELT published an article by Jan Lindenau: Robots mobilize against migration pact (behind the pay barrier). According to the article, Botswatch evaluated an analysis of 800,000 tweets between 24 November and 2 December. As a result, it announces that over a quarter of these tweets were social bots that created a mood against the migration pact in terms of content. This news was spread throughout the German press.
However, the analysis itself and the methodology proclaimed as a trade secret were not disclosed. This and the incomprehensible results met with considerable criticism from experts. Social media analyst Luca Hammer criticized the statements on Twitter. In a sample, he found that the proportion of bots – including automated information bots from the press – is around 6 percent. Data journalist Michael Kreil has written an open letter to Botswatch:
“We urgently need scientifically based, methodologically correct analyses of these processes! What we don’t need are actors who kidnap the discourse with unproven allegations, spread panic and uncertainty, and inadequately advise the federal government. For me, it is currently not possible to tell which position you would like to take with botswatch. Therefore I ask you, Mrs Wilke, to release the methods and data of your study “Social Bots and Migration Pact” for an independent, scientific review.”

The course of the discussion is described in the articles by Robert Tusch: Kritik an Botswatch: Warum die Debatte um die Social Bot-Studie zum Migrationspakt für Medien ist wichtig, in: Meedia vom 12.12.2018 sowie von Markus Reuter: Ein Bot allein macht keine Revolte. And also no migration debate, reproduced in: netzpolitik.org of 10.12.2018. It also deals with the methodological problems of identifying bots and other forms of accounts, which are more important for political influence on the net. “Alone in view of the influence of humanly operated accounts, it is simply dubious and subcomplex to try to explain social movements or hard-fought social discourses with bots.”
Jonas Hermann: Did bots have a one-sided influence on the debate on the migration pact? Neue Zürcher Zeitung of 13.12.2018 summarises the criticism and discussion once again. He points to Botswatch’s close personal ties to the CDU.
“The bot analysis was published on the day the migration pact was passed. This may or may not be a coincidence. What is certain, however, is that it can be used to discredit critics of the Pact and to present the debate about it as inflated and externally controlled.”
Thus, it is possible that it is not social bots, but freely invented data about social bots that should influence political discourse.

Data as Menetekel 6: Nitrogen dioxide limit invented

Alexander Kekulé, Director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology of the University Hospital Halle (Saale), has written an article in the ZEIT from 08.11.2018 – online behind the payment barrier – “Hysteria around the wrong thing. the limit of 40 micrograms for the exhaust gas is taken from the air”. To be read as facsimile on http://www.gegenwind-saarland.de/Klimawandel/181108-ZEIT-Hysterie-um-NO2.mrkd.pdf-Hysterie-um-NO2.mrkd.pdf . A shortened version was published in the Tagesspiegel of 10.11.2018, but no longer available on the online page of the TAGESSPIEGEL, but only via PRESSREADER. https://www.pressreader.com/germany/der-tagesspiegel/20181110/281715500636547
Subsequently, in 1993, the EU decided to set long-term air quality objectives, including a strict NO limit value. The legitimacy of such a value had to be based on the work of the World Health Organization (WHO). In order to reduce the then valid WHO guideline value of 150 micrograms, a working group was formed there, which made use of a meta-analysis from a five-year older report by the US Environmental Protection Agency. According to Kekulé, the meta-analysis evaluated various research projects whose parameters were completely different. Despite these completely different influencing factors, the result was “that respiratory diseases are 20 percent more frequent in households with gas cookers than in households with electric cookers”. However, no measured values could be derived from this, as very different concentrations (8 – 2500 micrograms) were found in households with gas cookers. “In the absence of useful data, the experts estimated without further ado that a gas stove increases the mean annual NO concentration in the household to about 40 micrograms and suggested this value as a guideline. To date, there is no evidence that the figure has anything to do with the health effects of NO”. Without verifying this, the EU adopted it as the legal limit. “To date, there are no robust data supporting the 40 microgram limit.”

Data as Menetekel 4: The secret of the 400,000

In the political discussion, data form the basis of a rational discussion. Data as a warning disguise and manipulate this discussion. The example of a shortage of skilled workers in Germany. There should be a shortage of skilled workers
2005 400.000
2007 400.000
2008 400.000
2010 400.000
2017 400.000
2018 500.000
There will also be a shortage of skilled workers in Switzerland by 2030. It is – who could be surprised – 400,000.
400,000 are obviously a number with which one can form public opinion without having to enter directly into options for action. Some critical contributions already show that there are some concrete things to discuss.

„Fachkräftemangel ist ein Kassenschlager“
Jakob Osman: So führen uns Politiker und Lobbyisten in die Irre. Das Märchen vom Fachkräftemangel, Manager Magazin 09.03.2017

 

Data as Menetekel 2: 100,000 fawns

In the article in the German newspaper FAZ by  Erik HechtTausende tote Rehe erfunden. Die Spur führt nach Hamburg vom 14.07.2018 “is proven that the number of 100,000 deer kids that die in Germany from mowing machines on meadows was invented by the German Wildlife Foundation. The real number can only be estimated and is probably half. As sad as the death of every single fawn is, it is normal in almost all areas to influence public opinion with purely invented data.

Data as Menetekel 1: 6000 dead

According to the German Umweltbundesamt, 6000 people in Germany die prematurely each year from nitrogen oxide. This number has been criticized in several articles, e.g. Jan Fleischhauer, Kampf gegen den Diesel. The fictitious dead, in: Spiegel Online 15.03.2018 Epidemiological studies can only show correlations, but cannot prove causalities.
The President of the Umweltbundesamt (UBA), Maria Krautzberger: “In office we discuss again and again how we can talk about complicated data that we collect. When do we have to simplify in order to be understood? Governments need such figures and their comparability to know the sum of health risks to people and where they need to do something”.
In short: the data has been invented. This handling of data shows a specific relationship to the citizen. It is not intended to give them an insight into the risks and then use political discourse to determine which risks could be reduced at what cost. He remains an object of propaganda and must not experience one thing: Cows may be more dangerous than cars when it comes to nitric oxide.